On
March 2, Judge Benson Everett Legg of the United States District Court
for the District of Maryland decided that Maryland’s handgun regulation
violated the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution. This
well-reasoned decision stands as important precedent against the exercise
of arbitrary will by state authorities who wish to deprive citizens
of their right to carry handguns outside the home for purposes of self-defense.
In an age of increasing lawlessness and less than adequate police protection,
this decision helps shift the balance in favor of the right to bear
arms, reasserting the primacy of the Founding Fathers’ construct.

It
was just one month ago that United States Supreme Court Justice Stephen
Breyer suffered first hand the indignity and horror of an armed confrontation
that could have been altered fundamentally had a person in his entourage
been armed with a gun. Justice Breyer was robbed by a machete-wielding
robber at his vacation home on the Caribbean Island of Nevis. One wonders
if Justice Breyer or another in his entourage had trained a handgun
on the intruder whether that would have dissuaded him from the robbery.
While every circumstance is unique, and it may have been the better
part of valor in Breyer’s robbery to simply allow the intruder
to abscond with cash, clearly if the robber threatened the lives of
the Justice, his wife, and his friends, resort to a handgun could have
evened the score in a manner akin to Indiana Jones’ dispatch of
his scimitar-wielding opponent in “Indiana Jones and the Emperor’s
Tomb.”

At
least in Maryland, citizens will enjoy the right to do just that and
more. In Woollard v. Sheridan, et. al., Judge Legg confronted a Maryland
law that permitted Maryland’s Handgun Permit Review Board to refuse
a gun permit to anyone the board believed failed to demonstrate “good
and substantial reason” for having a handgun. The plaintiff, Raymond
Woollard, lived on a farm in rural Baltimore County. On Christmas Eve
2002, an intruder broke a window in his home and entered his house.
The intruder was Woollard’s son-in-law, Kris Lee Abbott, who was
high on drugs. Woollard trained a shotgun on Abbott who then wrestled
the gun away from Woollard, but Woollard was rescued by his son who
pointed another gun at Abbott until police arrived and arrested the
burglar. Abbott was convicted of first degree burglary and sentenced
to three years’ probation. Abbott later violated his probation
by assaulting a police officer and committing another burglary.

Woollard
had a handgun carry permit, which he sought to renew in 2009. As part
of the permit renewal process, Woollard was asked to submit evidence
to support the conclusion that he “apprehended fear” as
a “good and substantial reason” for possessing a handgun
outside the home. The Handgun Permit Review Board denied Woollard a
permit because he “ha[d] not demonstrated a good and substantial
reason to wear, carry, or transport a handgun as a reasonable precaution
against apprehended danger in the State of Maryland.”

In
assessing Maryland’s handgun regulation, Judge Legg found it in
facial violation of the Second Amendment because, on its face, it gave
licensing officials virtually unbridled discretion. In particular, he
found the fit between the regulation and the government’s interest
in preventing crime and injury to be inadequate. Indeed, he determined
that “[i]f anything, the Maryland regulation puts firearms in
the hands of those most likely to use them in a violent situation by
limiting the issuance of permits to ‘groups of individuals who
are at greater risk than others of being the victims of crime.’”
We might also add that the inquiry is absurd on its face because it
is impossible to discern who, in an individual case, is likely to be
the next victim of crime; we are all vulnerable. The Maryland Handgun
Permit Review Board members are not soothsayers, and the law cannot
condone soothsaying as a rational means to predict crime and injury.
Judge Legg concluded that “Maryland’s goal of ‘minimizing
the proliferation of handguns among those who do not have a demonstrated
need for them,’ is not a permissible method of preventing crime
or ensuring public safety; it burdens the right too broadly.”
Indeed.

In
an important part of the decision, Judge Legg interpreted the term “bear”
in the Second Amendment (“A well regulated Militia, being necessary
to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and
bear Arms, shall not be infringed”). He reasoned that the term
“bear” plainly implies a right to possess arms outside the
home. Quoting from the Supreme Court’s decision in District of
Columbia v. Heller, he explained that the meaning of the term “bear”
is to “wear, bear, or carry . . . upon the person or in the clothing
or in a pocket, for the purpose . . . of being armed and ready for offensive
or defensive action in a case of conflict with another person.”
There is in this meaning no restriction that would limit exercise of
the right to the home.

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In
an age of increasing lawlessness and inadequate police protection, the
essential right to bear arms, a right protected by the Constitution
regardless of any subjective evaluation of the relative need for a weapon
in a particular case, becomes ever more important. No less a figure
than Justice Breyer comprehends personally just how grave a circumstance
it can be if an armed person confronts you and you possess no weapon
in self defense. There are times when the rule of law and reason afford
no defense. At those times, might determines the outcome. To ensure
freedom, law enforcement can never become so ubiquitous as to ensure
its availability at every moment when violence is about to occur. There
is always a need for self-defense. For those times, the right to bear
arms is a right to life and derives its legitimacy from the unalienable
natural right of self-defense which no just government can deprive its
people.

Jonathan W. Emord
is an attorney who practices constitutional and administrative law before
the federal courts and agencies. Congressman Ron Paul calls Jonathan “a
hero of the health freedom revolution” and says “all freedom-loving
Americans are in [his] debt . . . for his courtroom [victories] on behalf
of health freedom.” He has defeated the FDA in federal court a remarkable
eight times, six on First Amendment grounds, and is the author
of Amazon bestsellers The
Rise of Tyranny, Global
Censorship of Health Information,
and Restore
the Republic. He is also the American Justice columnist for
U.S.A. Today Magazine. For more info visit Emord.com.

In
an age of increasing lawlessness and inadequate police protection, the
essential right to bear arms, a right protected by the Constitution regardless
of any subjective evaluation of the relative need for a weapon in a particular
case, becomes ever more important.